Chinese provincial government-owned Guangzhou Industrial Investment Fund Management Co (Sfund) saw a 14 times covered order book for its return to dollar bonds, while Yunnan Metropolitan Construction Investment Group Co was able to hit its $800m size target.

The wave of demand that has poured into the European corporate bond market since January, sweeping spreads tighter, paused this week. Deals were still priced at tight levels, but most had at least some new issue concession and the tone definitely felt more “normal”, as one banker said.

RCI Banque followed Volkswagen Financial Services’ triple tranche bond issue on Monday with its own two-part issue on Wednesday. Both car finance banks, as very regular issuers, are unlikely to command the absolute tightest pricing relative to their secondary curves, but demand has also cooled somewhat this week, compared with the avid tone of recent weeks. Nevertheless, pricing tightened a long way.

Europe’s most prolific corporate bond issuer re-entered the market on Monday for its second multi-tranche deal of the year, and issued €2.75bn, slightly more than at its €2.5bn outing in January. The book for Volkswagen Financial Services’ three tranche issue was somewhat smaller this time, however.

Total, the French oil company, achieved a flat new issue concession on its €1.5bn hybrid bond on Wednesday, according to bankers away from the deal, as investors swarmed into the book in search of yield.

Vodafone launched and priced on Thursday a $2bn hybrid capital issue, to gain some more equity credit in the eyes of the rating agencies. The deal follows Moody’s decision on Monday to give no equity credit to Vodafone’s £3.4bn mandatorily convertible bond, issued on March 5.

Südzucker, the German sugar company that was one of the first ever issuers of corporate hybrid capital with a €700m perpetual issue in 2005, has been forced to suspend coupon payments on the bond, when poor results it released on Wednesday hit cashflow triggers in the documentation.

De Nederlandsche Bank has become the first central bank to sign the Principles for Responsible Investment, as the next stage in its development of a fuller approach to sustainability, including in its investments.

Sean Tai, founder of Debtdomain, spoke exclusively to GlobalCapital to discuss digital platforms in the Schuldschein market: their future, barriers to entry, the risk of fragmentation — and the possibility that Debtdomain's functionality could broaden.

State oil company Saudi Aramco is expected to tap the bond market in the next fortnight for a deal that could be anywhere in the region of $7bn-$15bn, according to bankers in the region away from the deal. Estimates of the premium Aramco will have to pay over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia curve is being discussed as negative to plus 15bp, depending on the size of the deal.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has fined Fitch for conflicts of interest, relating to ratings given to entities where French billionaire businessman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière sat on the board. The French businessman indirectly owned a stake in the ratings agency.

Indian bonds issuers are racing to the offshore market for cash to beat the country’s financial year-end and the uncertainty of a general election straight afterwards. Morgan Davis and Addison Gong report.

RCI Banque followed Volkswagen Financial Services' triple tranche bond issue on Monday with its own two-part issue on Wednesday. Both car finance banks, as very regular issuers, are unlikely to command the absolute tightest pricing relative to their secondary curves, but demand has also cooled somewhat this week, compared with the avid tone of recent weeks. Nevertheless, pricing tightened a long way.

Total, the French oil company, issued a €1.5bn hybrid capital bond on Wednesday, at the same time as launching a tender offer to buy back some of its €2.5bn call February 2021 and €1.75bn call May 2022 hybrids.

Almost everyone in the European corporate bond market admits they were wrongfooted by the storm of demand that has overwhelmed issuers this year. But the weather has changed again, as unexpectedly. From last week to this, the temperature is cooler and new issue premiums are, in most cases, back.

Evraz raised $700m with a five year bond on Wednesday as it returned to the fixed income market for the first time in two years. The company used the proceeds to finance a tender offer of its April 2020s.

Conditions in Europe's corporate bond market remain attractive for issuers, but the exceptionally hot demand of the last two or three weeks has cooled. Deals on Tuesday, including a dual tranche from Anheuser-Busch InBev, confirmed the finding of Volkswagen's offering on Monday: that new issue premiums are no longer zero or negative.

Moody’s has decided not to give any equity credit to the £3.44bn of mandatorily convertible bonds issued by Vodafone on March 5. That means the UK mobile phone company has not yet achieved the total equity credit it had hoped to get from its financings for its Unitymedia acquisition. Vodafone announced on Tuesday March 26 a new hybrid capital issue which will gain it some more equity credit (see separate story).

Mersen, a French technology manufacturer, will not accept bids from UK-based lenders for its new Schuldschein “in anticipation of a potential Brexit”. Three bankers away from the transaction said they have also discussed excluding UK lenders with other borrowers.

Indian Railway Finance Corp (IRFC) pushed into the dollar market on Monday to close a bond trade ahead of the end of the financial year. The issuer managed to grab $500m from the five year sale, despite a weaker market.

Last week’s tap of a KWG Group Holdings dollar bond triggered a debate between bankers about what makes for good market practice. The issuer may be an established and reputable one, but the tap was priced with the borrower still in an earnings blackout. If this sort of timing were to take hold, the Asian issuers as a whole will struggle to build a globally diversified investor base.

Europe’s most prolific corporate bond issuer re-entered the market on Monday for its second multi-tranche deal of the year, and issued €2.75bn, slightly more than at its €2.5bn outing in January. The book for Volkswagen Financial Services' three tranche issue was somewhat smaller this time, however.

VC Trade, the leading digital challenger in the Schuldschein market, has begun cooperating with Scope Ratings, which will now offer optional credit opinions for any borrower using the platform. This will add efficiency and transparency to the market, proponents claim.

Barclays and Natwest Markets have come first and second in league tables for cross-border activity in the US private placement market. As US private placements become more popular in the UK, British banks have strengthened their status in the market.

Dollar bonds in Asia followed the US markets’ end to last week by trading lower. Nonetheless, the continent’s investment grade issuers are looking to print with many high yield issuers still emerging from earnings blackouts.

Ex-Barclays honcho John Winter has been appointed CEO of MUFG Securities for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and head of the Japanese bank’s global corporate and investment banking business for EMEA.

Local government financing vehicle (LGFV) Chengdu Economic and Technological Development Zone State-Owned Assets Investment doubled the size of a 2022 bond on Thursday, while another Chinese issuer Zhongtai Financial International walked away with $200m from a sub-one year note.

Another exceptionally strong week for corporate bond issuance in Europe petered out slightly on Wednesday and Thursday, but the fireworks of the first two days make it clear to all that investors’ thirst for bonds remains exceptional.

Capital market specialists are good at living with radical uncertainty. Just as banks and investors carried on calmly trading US Treasuries through successive debt ceiling crises, they are now displaying similar sangfroid about Brexit.

Standard & Poor’s will not give explicit equity credit to the £3.4bn of mandatorily convertible bonds issued by Vodafone a fortnight ago. But S&P will give some rating benefit, and the UK telecoms company is cheerful about the result. Some bankers believe other issuers will follow suit, writes Jon Hay.

High yield bond investors in Europe are getting squeezed from both sides, as formerly regular visitors to the market hit investment grade status, and new acquisition financings hit the loan market rather than bonds. Schaeffler’s blow-out debut in the investment grade bond market on Tuesday took out €1.5bn equivalent of former HY product.

Bankers expressed concerns about widening high-grade spreads after the Federal Reserve this week completed its u-turn on monetary policy by signalling it will refrain from raising interest rates for the rest of the year.

The US Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday gave renewed confidence to the investment thesis that is underlying the present superlative demand for corporate bonds in Europe: that interest rates are staying low for a good while.

SSP, the UK food and drinks retail operator, has sold US private placements (US PP) via Barclays and Bank of America. Pricing was similar to its PP debut last year, market participants said, which is a sign that, for the right UK credit, the market remains stable amid the Brexit storm.

Chinese property company KWG Group Holdings closed a $350m bond tap this week, coming to the market just a week before it was due to report earnings. That led to a sharp disagreement between bankers over the practice of launching deals during a blackout period. Morgan Davis reports.